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“Well, I say it’s been a total success, Mr. Gustav! In no small part thanks to Freya’s work on the maypole. If I ever hear that old geezer say a word about women doing the jobs of men again—!”
The great and bearded tree trunk of a man waves a hand hurriedly, shushing Elise as she’s beginning some vitriolic burst, even as he chuckles in unspoken agreement. “I hear you, Elise. But we’ve gotten this far into the evening without any arguments - let’s keep the slate clean, right?”
…Folding her arms tightly, her bony elbows carving a statuesque shape, Elise huffs a vague murmur of assent, conceding the point. It’s not even like old Jochen’s the type who’d forget a bout at this time of night in the haze of the post-festival hangover; he’s been tee-total off booze for years, she gathers.
(Something-something-devil’s-juice-something-something-senses-beguiled. Surely a contributing factor to why he’s such a jolly, red-cheeked old fellow, she imagines.)
As she looks this way and that through the crowd for the crusty coffin dodger, the absence of one colour that should suit the fading twilight perfectly captures her attention; the sweeping lilac locks like strokes of paint depicting the night sky she nestles beneath…
“...say, Mr. Gustav, have you seen Rosmarine about the place?”
In the meantime, Gustav had been swigging at his latest tankard of Kieferberg’s supposedly fine ale. (Elise would argue it’s too watery, if she liked any such drink enough for her opinion on the matter to have weight to the brewers). Upon this question, he sets it down, a few suds settling at the edges of his beard. (...He’s nice and a bit drunk, so she’ll let that atrocity of masculine display go by without a quip about it.)
“The wee lassie! Yes, right – that’s actually why I came over to chat in the first place! Sorry, lass – head’s all over the place, I’ve been so busy. She left… Ten minutes back, maybe? Asked me to tell you she’s toddled off home ahead of you. Something about supper, I think?”
“I see…” Elise can’t help but feel…wary. It’s so soon after… After she’d stared into that infernal cavern, golden goblets laying out of its maw like crumbs from the wealth of wishes it must have devoured… A cavern Rozenmarine was so set upon… It’s too soon to just go off on your own like that, Rosmarine…!
“Thank you, Mr. Gustav. In that case, I won’t keep her waiting any longer. For… For everything this week, thank you. If not for you, for Freya, and Leb too…”
…Gustav nods grimly, slapping a hand upon the stained white ruffles upon her shoulder. What might have become of her and Rozenmarine without those few voices in the corner of reason…doesn’t bear saying aloud, his old hazel eyes agree. “Go then, lass. Though I’ll be stunned if you’ve still the appetite for supper after all this!”
As he laughs a bit too uproariously at his own words, Elise laughs nervously – we’ll see about that, she supposes. She stands proud from her seat, takes a second to check her trusty ribbon’s still keeping that shaggy mane of hers in check, and gives a lazy mockery of a curtsy before striding out of the brightest night Kieferberg has seen in weeks.
…
And as soon as she’s past the great looming arch to the west of the church, she breaks into a sprint.
Supper? That wording’s just too worrisome! Those illusory demons of her dreams, this past week – they spoke of a banquet that she’d be late for… And that accursed snake, too! Those words – sinful even by Elise’s considerably more modern standards, she’d like to think – of indulgence and revelry… Was it all alluding to this?
(Her ruby red shoes carry her to the crossroads. The night wind screeches, blowing in from Primeldorf, urging her toward the woodland.)
That she’d deny Him the first time – and still come crawling back while the offer remained? Still arrive with gifts in hand, apologising for her tardiness?
(The moonlight whispers. Tree roots curl up from the dirt and beckon like wrinkled claws. Her burning fingertips twitch towards the basket she yet holds in the crook of her arm, like a newborn babe.)
…
Shuddering, Elise slaps some colour back into her own cheeks, and turns; the wind at her back can push her to the mountain too.
“I should… Check at home first. Rosmarine, you… You silly goose, don’t tell me…!”
…
The walk is as lonely as ever. It’s always this way. No one accompanies her but the shimmering reflection across the skipping stones – so many evenings, the last thing she’d wanted to see on the way home.
(Elise always knows that she’s covered in chicken muck and straw; she doesn’t need to be reminded of it. She always knows that her hand still bleeds from that splinter at the chopping stump; she doesn’t need to see a drop fall and turn the river a brief but deep red, as though she’s poisoning the villagers down its flow the way they’d like to think she is.)
It’s always this way – except it’s not, of course. This past week, someone else has walked alongside her, up to the lonely haunted house on the hill, where thunder booms its loudest, where the eyes of the last wolves wait outside the windows, and where a ghost waits behind a locked door, for the day the rotten granddaughter she’ll hardly recognise finally dares to open it—
Elise shakes her head, as she runs a hand against the stone walls along the grapevine path. Even…if she might not be proud of me… Granny Holle wouldn’t want me thinking like that, I’m sure...
Someone else has walked the forgotten trail. She has stooped to lift the prettiest pebbles, which had once only served to buffer the blisters on Elise’s feet, and she has shown them to Elise with fascination.
=====
“Haaa?! Elise, look – look at this one! Don’t you know what this is?”
Elise stops, turning to Rozenmarine’s open hands offered to her gaze, and looking upon whatever she’s fished out from the riverbank. And…
“... Oh my giddy aunt. Rosmarine, is – is that gold?! Is there GOLD on the way to my HOUSE?!”
“Ah, close! This is called pyrite, Elise! It sparkles and glimmers really similarly, but it’s a lot more fragile, so it’s not worth very much to people like big miners… A lot of people tend to call it ‘fool’s gold’ as a result, but—”
…Gah. It’s only that shamelessly infectious smile that stops Elise from downright howling at the disappointment – she can’t bear to raise her voice in the face of that…
“...For goodness’ sake, Rosmarine, don’t get me all excited like that…”
“O-oh, I’m sorry…” The little lady withers a few inches further (surprisingly possible) and yanks the wide brim of her hat down to cover a few more inches of her face.
…A moment passes, and with a thin smile, Elise rolls her hands like a windmill, urging for elaboration. …Then realises Rozenmarine probably can’t see her doing that. For goodness’ sake.
“But…? There was a but.”
“Oh! Ah, well, in terms of spiritual value… Granny always said fool’s gold was far more valuable than the real thing! Can you guess why, Elise?” She lifts the hat up again, looking up at her partner in destiny expectantly.
Elise supposes she might have the right answer, actually – but Rozenmarine’ll probably be happier if she gets to say it herself… So, she does her best confused face, and says - “No, I don’t think I can… Why, Rosmarine?”
Rozenmarine giggles, and Elise smiles too.
“It’s because it’s so fragile! A gift of gold is tough and durable, and that’s good too, but anything made of pyrite can shatter or crumble really easily! So it was surely even more difficult for the giver to make, and it shows much more faith in the receiver to treasure it!”
…
“Rosmarine, that’s…”
The jealous, longing person that makes up so much of Elise Liedl offers some suggestions. Ridiculous! Just some old fairytale moral for kiddies so they’re not upset when they find fool’s gold, obviously!
…So Elise finds herself a little surprised when, with the faintest hint of colour to her cheeks, she’s instead saying…
“...a pretty sweet way to think about it, actually. Ehehehe…!”
The reddening maid half-turns away to hide her face, and nervously swipes at some other pebbles on the ground with her shimmering shoes; and in the corner of her eye, Rozenmarine is daring what Elise might call a smirk. The cheeky devil! Rozenmarine can smirk? What, just because I’m being won over a little, maybe, by her nonsense?
Hmph. Hmph, then!
We’ll see if you can still smirk instead of gawking and gasping when I make you a bracelet of fool’s gold, lassie!
…Elise blinks in surprise as her brain threatens to decipher the emotions behind that thought, and takes about a dozen quick steps to get her must-be-hidden face a head start.
“...Come along now, Rosmarine! Let’s hope there’s been nothing in town for the old bats to pin on the witch this time…”
Maybe won over more than a little, okay…
=====
Elise rounds the corner up to the old house, the last few steps absent-minded, feet led by dreamy nostalgia like shoes that compel one to dance. There it lies before her; her everything, and her unchanging nothing. The promising roots of all her happy memories, and the rotting, barren fruit of her family tree.
It’s a nice house, she supposes. Or it could be, for someone else – for a different girl, who could let those happy memories out of the closet to fly like magical moths, spread their glitter around the walls, and flutter free through the window.
From the thicket before the clearing, Elise’s eyes fix themselves upon that home.
It’s lonely. Every piece of it is or has been covered in dust, and every speck of dust is covered in Holle. The spinning wheel, covered in enough cobwebs to weave a spider’s shirt; the boxes of things she was supposed to find the courage to sort through ten years ago. Miss Mechtilde still wonders, now and then, where that necklace she gave Holle in their youth got to; Elise hasn’t the heart to explain. How can she? How does one breach those feelings – that finally sitting down and rooting through those boxes with her tired hands will be like losing her all over again, and being left in that empty place without even a ghost to haunt her?
…Then suddenly comes the sound of plates scraping off one another, and cutlery being pulled from the drawer; Elise’s eyes finally settle on the active details, rather than the abstract. The gentle puffs of smoke into the night that waft from the chimney, like steam from a fresh pie of Freya’s; the gentle orange light from the kitchen windows, the same warm glow of the sunset she watched upon the granary with Rozenmarine today.
It’s not empty, this time. Someone else has taken in the sight of the old house, and bore a fresh smile each and every time as she did, finding something so special in a place Elise has found dull for so many bygone years.
=====
“You know, Elise, even in the rain… Your house is so pretty.”
“...I don’t think pretty is the word you’re looking for, Rosmarine. That’s a people word.”
Elise regrets being so pointed about that as she watches Rozenmarine frown in contemplation, realising Elise is probably right. And at that, Rozenmarine turns her head up to the clouds, gazing up at the sky – through the droplets that slide down her dimpled cheeks, collect upon her jawline, and drip past her neck somewhere into her clothes. Elise ought to tell her she’ll catch cold and to hurry inside… But for her part, the view distracts her as well.
So instead, she asks. “...What did you mean, though? It’s a 'pretty’ ordinary place, isn’t it?”
Rozenmarine ponders in silence for a moment; like she’s trying to consult the stars before she answers. …The awkwardness with which that answer comes, however, suggests she had no luck in breaking through the cloud barrier to reach them. (Perhaps this is the key to her occasional bouts of staggering, heart-pounding romanticism – cut her off from the sky with a storm, and she can’t be granted such cheek-flushing revelations?)
“O-Oh, I suppose it’s… Maybe it’s less like it’s a pretty house, and more like… My memories of it are pretty? Or… I suppose they’re not memories yet, but…”
Elise takes a moment to reply, because she’s been looking at Rozenmarine’s lips instead. Fallen droplets gather upon their arch too; thoughtlessly, as though by instinct, Elise takes a moment to raise her own head to the sky, and childishly sticks out her tongue to answer how the rain must taste.
(The closest thing, for now.)
“Oh? You know, Rosmarine, you’re awfully fond of all these dreams of yours – but you never tell me any of the details till after they’ve happened. I’d like to know what I can look forward to, now and again!”
Rozenmarine’s attention is caught – and she, herself, is caught off-guard – by such a daring question; she finally lowers her gaze back to earth, meeting Elise’s eyes from beneath the safe shelter of her adorable hat. “W-Well, right now, I was actually thinking about something I dreamed we’d do in the rain in the front garden, on a day just like today…”
The girl in ruby shoes freezes like a statue. It seems the little imp can still come out with these vexing words beneath cloud cover, curses…! Rain beats against her and pools in a puddle at her feet; it’s like being the centrepiece of a fountain. …After a couple seconds of opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water – that’s another fountain in town, isn’t it? – she points an indignant finger across the way.
“H-Hey, don’t think you can just make up some romantic nonsense and say that I have to do it because it was in your dreams, lassie! I’m onto you!”
Rozenmarine gasps, appalled. “I–I wouldn’t dare, Eliiiiise–! We don’t — Um, I mean! All we do is… Well, what with the rain, and how close we are to the house… You pull me in tight, like we’re about to dance… And, um, hold my hand in doing so, naturally… And shelter me from the storm for the last little bit of the trip back home…”
Elise really wants to snort and say, ‘Is that so?’ But… Really, it’s such a humble situation that she can’t see why Rozenmarine would bother making it up, without asking for something more… And Elise…can’t deny that she’d quite like to do it now, too. While the idea’s in her head, is all.
“Ehehe…?! Well, I suppose that would be a pretty memory… I just don’t get one thing, though. Why would I be the one sheltering you while we walk back inside?”
The irony, of course, is that they’d already be inside if they hadn’t stopped to chat. Neither really minds.
“You’re the one with that big ol’ hat, Rosmarine. If anything, I ought to be creeping next to you and trying to hide under it.”
Elise places her hands on her hips, challengingly posed, awaiting the prophesied answer; as expected, Rozenmarine stutters for a moment for an explanation, hands nervously fussing with one another in front of her own apron.
“W-Well… You’ll think I’m making this up…”
…At how worried the shorter girl seems, Elise’s heart does a little kick-out and she can’t help but throw her an olive branch. “No, I won’t. I wouldn’t be doing all this if I didn’t put some stock in the fate you’ve seen, Rosmarine! C’mon, tell me.”
Her hands continue fussing. Now that Elise thinks of it, she’d spent most of the journey with a steadying hold on…
“You see, a great—auuuh!!”
FWOOSH! As though summoned by the woodland witch, a mighty wind blows in from the south, snatching Rozenmarine’s hat right off of her head, and sending it far beyond their reach in an instant, tossing it across the garden and—
—in. Through. The open kitchen window?
“Ehuhuhe… That, um… That’s what happened in my dreams.”
Why is the kitchen window even open?! Nobody’s home and there’s a storm!
“...F-Fate works in mysterious ways, eh…! Oh, fine. C’mere, Rosmarine!”
As Elise follows her fated role to take Rozenmarine under her soggy, proverbial wing and to clasp that soft hand in her callused own, the pair break out into irresistible strings of giggles, bursting forth together in bouts like bunches of grapes. Ruby red shoes and golden rosemary clogs splash across the muddy path to the safety of the house, staining their shimmering surfaces with the flawed underfoot. Once they’re in, Elise kicks the front door shut behind her, and the two really do dance – like something from a distant green island to the west, kicking their feet furiously to a silent rhythm against the entrance mat, before slipping those items off.
(They’re both in such a tizzy, Elise hardly even considers that taking off her shoes for so little as a few minutes could be seen as a rejection of His invitation… So it’s her good fortune that such a condition isn’t part of the contract.)
It’s ten minutes later that they’re sat at the kitchen table in dry clothes, legs of their chairs intertwined awkwardly to sit closer to each other; Elise has donned her white ruffle-laden nightwear, and drowned Rozenmarine in a considerably oversized brown number with childish renditions of squirrels and cutesy bears embroidered across its figure. (A ‘fall dress’ gifted by Freya last year, which Elise appreciates the sentiment of, but has hardly dared wear out, in truth. It’s just vexingly juvenile. …In the firelight now, she thinks it suits Rozenmarine better, given her far superior affinity with all things nature… Though upon that girl’s stature, it’s more of a winter dress for her.)
Their usual outfits are hung close to the fireplace, in the hope of getting them moderately dried before the walk back to the vigil.
“Hmmm…” Elise finally brings her palm down from Rozenmarine’s temples, nodding gently. “Your temperature’s fine, Rosmarine.” So, her concerns these past minutes were unfounded. Good! No need for all that annoying worry and concern that’d been building up then! “Come on, a couple extra minutes in the rain for a lassie as tough as you?! Psh. I say you could work as a scarecrow and be in perfect health!”
With a quirked eyebrow, Rozenmarine covers the following giggle with a bunched fist – it’s a strange sort of compliment that most could read as insulting, but she knows Elise. So she knows it’s meant in a nice way, if covered in a…baffling sort of bluster to cover that the person fearing such an ailment was Elise to begin with.
When her eyes, squinting shut for the broadness of her smile, flutter open – they meet adorned slices of fresh bread before them, and each goes as wide as the saucer they’ve been served upon.
Elise’s brow creases in frustration, and indignation burns red around her ears. “Oh, come now! I’m not so selfish to earn that sort of reaction when I give you the bigger dinner, Rosmarine!”
“Ah!” The little witch quickly and urgently waves her hands, trying to un-cast whatever spell her traitorous eyes have performed. “No, that’s not – I’m just surprised because… You didn’t… I mean, you weren’t supposed to do that!”
Elise looks down her sharp nose with suspicion. “Supposed to? Do you think me so predictable, lassie?”
“In my dream! The dream of this night, Elise – I-I’m sure it ended with dinner being served – and I certainly didn’t have this much bread!”
…Huh.
Elise racks her brain for something a little unexpected to test an idea. After a moment of tension, she reaches a hand over, and runs it affectionately through Rozenmarine’s lilac locks – hoping she’s absorbed enough of a technique from Lebkuchen that it doesn’t come off like petting a dog or something…
“E-Eh…?”
One side of Rozenmarine’s mouth curls upwards, suggesting yes, she is doing it pretty well – but the other hangs awkwardly open in befuddlement. Elise manages to go on, despite the colour of strawberry jam on their awaiting meal spreading upon her cheeks without a single bite.
“I–I bet I didn’t do that in your dream either, eh?”
“N–No… You didn’t, actually…!”
With that, Elise withdraws her hand from Rozenmarine’s hair with a final little pat, wipes it against the tablecloth to dry it, and poses it together with its opposite against her own hips in triumph!
“Heheheh! Who knew this defying fate malarkey was so easy?!”
…As confusing as the moment is… And as much as she’d like to clarify that Elise isn’t quite following the same definition of fate as she would… Rozenmarine can’t help but bask in that feeling, lifting a first piece of bread to nibble away at.
It really isn’t much of a contradiction with their fate, she reasons… Something so small and fleeting as portions of one dinner might just be something she got mixed up in the final moments of the fog between sleep and waking… And that, um, physical affection… Probably happened after the dream ended anyway…
…yet even still, the stars seem to whisper…
…It feels significant.
=====
…And it was, wasn’t it?
Fate didn’t have it in store for Elise Liedl to come home to Rozenmarine and candlelight awaiting in the front room on Walpurgisnacht.
Fate had nothing at all prepared for Rozenmarine, this night or any beyond, but phantasmagoria – endless dreams of not even gold, but pyrite – and brimstone.
Elise walks towards the old house on the hill, ruby red shoes beginning to wear and crumple – but still holding well enough. Still fit for purpose, for a few more hours. Still time before midnight arrives, the bells ring out, and the slippers shatter.
Some piece, some beast inside her composed of equal parts cunning fox and voracious lion with scarlet talons and a churning silver stomach, growls its misgivings with the state of things as she goes.
The chimney and its weary puffs of smoke, like haggard breaths in winter turning to water vapour, are nothing compared to the great red flags of royalty, billowing in the wind of all four seasons.
The front yard, with its barrels and its puddles and its ancient trees with eyes – it doesn’t compare to the courtyard she envisions, where the only mysteries or illusions or fears dwell within the spiralling hedge maze for the gardeners and the visitors to imagine; from her tower, Elise would see its shape, its form and its exit, laughing haughtily at the view of the clueless wanderings below.
The downspout instead of a moat; a weathered granary out back instead of the private cottage; Flocke, wherever he’s gotten to, instead of a great white horse!
And with every step towards that familiar old door, that damned door that leads to a dusty old tomb of striving lives and memories drifting out of reach, that beast entertains it more. It’s not too late to change her mind again, Elise knows; just walk in and say it.
Just open the door…
(Elise’s sweating hand fumbles with the knob.)
…and say…
(It swings open with a terrible creak.)
Rosmarine – I made a mistake, let’s go back while the full moon still shines!
(The light from the fireplace illuminates her good company’s hair a gorgeous cloudy pink; with a little squeak of surprise, she turns to face the entrance—)
“R…”
(—and beams at her love, lifting a hand in greeting, completely neglecting to notice that in doing so, that hand pulls a ladle’s worth of soup from the pot and sends half its contents splattered along the side.)
“Elise! I was wondering when you’d be home – did Mr. Gustav not mention what I told him…?”
(...'Home.'
Someone has been here, to smile as her weary bones lug themselves across the threshold in the evenings, and lift her spirits with need for naught else.)
=====
The door opens — and Elise practically collapses in through it, staggering straight over to the table and sweeping the majority of its contents onto the floor, as she scrabbles at the cloth for a grip to prop herself steady upon. The groan which follows urges Rozenmarine into action, dashing across from where she’d been sat.
(She’d dragged a couple blankets to settle herself up in front of the fireplace, Elise notices, through the swirling and howling and giggling inside her head. She wouldn’t go to sleep? Waiting up for… For her? To come home…?)
“Ah, ah, E-Elise! Elise, what’s wrong?”
The makeshift cloth around the maid’s hand, nothing but a wrapping of leaves and dew-soaked grass, is carefully unwoven by Rozenmarine. There, fresh blood drips constantly from her index finger; but what baffles her is that no wound is the source.
“Elise, I… Can you tell me how this started? Did it happen in the woods?”
Again, Elise only groans in reply, stamping her feet against the floor in defiance of the pain and the numbness lurking beneath it. That serpentine hag, all this just for the Testament?! And to do it with her face – with Rosmarine’s face, the gall–!
Panicking, flitting hurriedly through miracle cures and healing gestures that her granny had taught her, Rozenmarine does what her heart says is right —
“Pardon me, Elise…!”
— and kisses that finger through the freshest drop of blood. Her tender lips clean it of deep red in the process; if Elise hadn’t lost so much of that red, the colour would surely have covered her visage by now.
Rozenmarine lifts her face, cradling Elise’s index finger like precious water trickling through her fingers, so differently to the covetous grasp of the masked girls in the lagoon, and waits…
…
…to make certain the bleeding has stopped.
“R…Rosmarine…”
“Oh, Elise… I, I don’t know what came over me, I was just – I wanted so badly to help you, so I just did something—”
With what little strength her arms retain, Elise cuts across her needless apology by reaching over and grasping Rozenmarine tight, holding her in her most grateful embrace.
“Thank you, Rosmarine… You truly…”
…Rozenmarine spends the next few moments, she’d be embarrassed to admit, eagerly awaiting however that sentence will end… Only to realise Elise’s energy has given out around her, and that the girl still hugging her tight has fallen asleep.
“Eheh… You’re welcome, Elise! It’s, um… The least I can do, for my…”
…
More words better saved for waking dreams, she decides.
Dragging both the fireside blankets and her soulmate back to the bedroom is a difficult task…
…as is finding the willpower to leave them both, and retreat back to her cosy domain in the attic…
…but Rozenmarine manages both.
The next morning, she discovers with a shy and sad smile – Elise doesn’t remember.
=====
“A-Ah, Elise…?”
Stood in that same witching firelight two nights later, Elise does recall now.
Yes; a chimney instead of a flagpole.
A clearing instead of a courtyard.
A mere wooden door instead of wrought iron gates.
For goodness’ sake… How could I be so stupid?
But above all else…
“Rozenmarine—” And the shorter girl lets out a little gasp, just the same as the two times she’s said it already today. “—I’m home!”
… Rozen instead of a prince. A trade beyond all others.
“Mr. Gustav was just a little late getting around to it, don’t worry. What are we making here, then? It certainly smells good!”
A trace of tension snakes its way down Rozenmarine’s body and out of it entirely, as her beloved finds her composure again. And another little satisfied smirk creeps out across her face from the compliment to her cooking – gah, it’s REALLY too cute an expression to let her show so rarely!
“The grape soup you weren’t so keen on last time, actually! Heehee – has it won you over, Elise?”
Rozenmarine probably hears Elise gulp behind her – a surefire sign she’s been sucker-punched by the reveal that she’s admitted she does want to try such a strange supper… But the only words she replies with are fond.
“Ehehe…! I suppose. I owe it a try, I’ll admit.”
Rozenmarine gets back to stirring the cauldron, then. Elise tosses her apron somewhere to the side, kicks off her ruby red shoes for the final time, and sidles up behind the chef, warming her hands beneath the apron still adorning her adored one.
…An extremely dangerous thing to spring upon Rozenmarine standing over a cauldron, as it turns out – her grip of the ladle slips for a moment of giggly exclamation, and it dangerously grinds against the outer edge and perilously tips towards falling in…!
…till it’s caught by two hands; one of Elise and one of Rozenmarine, meeting upon its wooden handle, and locking together there.
“Eliiiiiiise. Don’t surprise me like that when I’m cooking.”
Elise snorts, nuzzling down into the shorter lassie’s shoulder with an apologetic smile – so broad Rozenmarine can feel it through her patchwork dress. “Sorry, sorry. You’ll have to get me back for it tomorrow, Rosmarine! I want to see that mischievous little look of yours more often from here on out, alright?”
“I have a ‘mischievous little look?’ That’s the first I’m hearing of it, Elise…”
“You’re doing it right now! See? See?!”
Rozenmarine’s laughter is bright and lilting; the type to carry on the wind and cross even meadows between them.
“Elise, you seemed… A little preoccupied, when you walked in. Is everything alright?”
“Ahhh, that was just, er…”
“Having second thoughts?”
As their joined hands continue to stir, Elise’s grip tightens; with a thumb, she caresses the back of Rozenmarine’s palm, intent to settle her uncertainties as fast as the sight of her love waiting had eased her own.
“No. No, not anymore, Rosmarine. I was just thinking… How much better you are than a castle.”
The fire crackles, and they both have to turn back quick – if it’s sparked out too far without a covering screen, it’s liable to set the whole house ablaze…!
…But it’s nothing, naturally. So they go back to gazing into the contents of their charred old cauldron, watching each other’s reflections through a gloopy and murky surface… And finding them as beautiful as can be regardless.
“Well, a castle wasn’t your fate, I suppose. It could hardly outdo the one who was, wouldn’t you say?”
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes at the expected arrival of some dashing line about romantic causality, all of which serves only to bury her deeper into the crook of Rozenmarine’s neck, Elise mutters with a chuckle – “For goodness’ sake… I can make you red too, you know. A-hem. I love you, Rozenmarine.”
Giggles. Encouraging and emboldening reward for a heartfelt line well mustered…!
“I love all of those things I used to call nonsense, too – your bracelet, your pinecone, your rocks and your lovely way of seeing things… And I’m sorry that you felt like you went overboard early on, okay? I get it now, Rosmarine. Pouring everything out to the one you love…is pretty hard to resist.”
A warbled hum of assent, and more giggles. For goodness’ sake, I’m a professional at this already!
“And I love… How you care… And how you see the best in me, and in everything. We could live in a field, you know – ah, be scarecrows, like I said – and I’m sure you could convince me it was really quite nice, actually!”
Rozenmarine sighs in a manner most dreamy. The soup-stirring has gotten quite lazy by now.
“...Ehuhe… The Elise in my dreams was never so fawning either, I’m not used to it…!”
“Hmph! That so? Well, you’ll just have to get used to it, lassie!”
With one last hug and a ghosted kiss before she lets her beloved back to focus on supper, Elise squeezes tight, but carefully, hoping to convey one sentiment alone without words;
That her fragile, fated Rozenmarine – her Rozenmarine - is more valuable than gold.
That the fool would only be the one who couldn’t see that.